those pears for years, although choco- late mousse eventually faded from my repertory when the crème-brûlée years began. Just before I moved to New York, two historic events had occurred: the birth-control pill was invented and the first Julia Child cookbook was pub- lished. As a result, everyone was having sex, and when the sex was over you cooked something. One of my girl- friends moved in with a man she was in love with. Her mother was distraught and warned that he would never marry her, because she had already slept with him. "Whatever you do," my friend's mother said, "don't cook for him." But it was too late. She cooked for him. He married her anyway. This was right around the time that arugula was dis- covered, which was followed by endive, which was followed by radicchio, which was followed by frisée, which was fol- lowed by the three M's-mesclun, mache, and microgreens-and that, in a nutshell, is the history of the past forty years from the point of view of lettuce. But I'm getting ahead of the story. By the mid-sixties, Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cook- ing," Craig Claiborne's "N ew York Times Cook Book," and Michael Field's "Cooking Schoof' had become the holy trinity of cookbooks. At this point, I was working as a reporter at the Post and living in the Village. If I was home alone at night, I cooked myself an entire meal from one of these cookbooks. Then I sat down in front of the television set and ate it. I felt very brave and plucky as I ate my perfect dinner. O.K., I didn't have a date, but at least I wasn't one of those lonely women who sat home with a pa- thetic container of yogurt. Eating a meal for four that I had cooked for myself was probably equally pathetic, but it never crossed my mind. I cooked every recipe in Michael Field's book, and at least half the reci- pes in the first Julia, and as I cooked I had imaginary conversations with them both. Julia was nicer and more forgiv- ing-she was on television by then and famous for dropping food, picking it up, and throwing it right back into the pan. Michael Field was sterner and more meticulous; he was almost fascistic. He was full of prejudice about things like the garlic press (he believed that using , 1L .'iì '- - f\ o -<> ø C)::) ð . one made the garlic bitter), and I threw mine away for fear that he would sud- denly materialize in my kitchen and dis- approve. His recipes were precise, and I followed them to the letter; I was young, and I believed that if you changed even a hair on a recipe's head it wouldn't turn out right. When I had people to dinner, I loved to serve Michaefs overcompli- cated recipe for chicken curry, accompa- nied by condiments and pappadums- although I sometimes served instead a marginally simpler Craig Claiborne recipe for lamb curry that had appeared in his Sunday column in the Times Magazine. There were bananas in it, and heavy cream. I made it recently and it was horrible. Craig Claiborne worked at the Times not just as the chief food writer but also as the restaurant critic. He was hugely powerfiù and influenrial, and I devcloped something of an obsession with him. Craig-everyone called him Craig even if they'd never met the man-was re- nowned for championing ethnic cuisine, and as his devoted acolyte I learned to cook things like moussaka and tabbou- leh. Everyone lived for his Sunday reci- pes; itwas the first page I turned to in the Sunday Times. Everyone knew he had a T echbuilt house on the bay in East Hampton, that hè d added a new kitchen to it, that he usually cooked with the \ . L Cb . French chef Pierre Franey, and that he despised iceberg lettuce. You can't really discuss the history of lettuce in the past forty years without mentioning Craig; he played a seminal role. I have always had a weakness for iceberg lettuce with Roquefort dressing, and that's one of the things I used to have imaginary argu- ments with Craig about. For a long time, I hoped that Craig and I would meet and become friends. I gave a lot of thought to this eventuality, most of it concerning what I would cook ifhe came to my house for dinner. I was confused about whether to serve him something from one of his cookbooks or something from someone elsès. Perhaps there was a protocol for such things; if so, I didn't know what it was. It occurred to me that I ought to serve him something that was "my" recipe, but I didn't have any recipes that were truly mine-with the possible exception of my mother's barbecue sauce, which mostly consisted of Heinz ketchup. But I desperately wanted him to come over. I'd read some- where that people were afraid to invite him to dinner. I wasn't; I just didn't know the man. I must confess that my fantasy included the hope that after he came to dinner he would write an article about me and include my recipes; but, as I say, I didn't have any. Meanwhile, I got married and en- THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 13 & 20, 2006 93